Airport Noise Emails Between Bellvista Resident & Caloundra Airport:

BeCA has received a copy of a series of emails of one resident’s complaints and responses from the Caloundra Airport regarding the behaviour of helicopters over our estate. The emails have been adjusted to preserve the anonymity of the BeCA resident and the Chopperline respondent. All email contact addresses have also been deleted.

The email dates have been left in place so you can put the emails into sequence.

1. “Hello BeCA.

You may be interested in the response by Danny Eatock, Sunshine Coast Airport, to my emails regarding Helicopters.

It would appear the ‘Fly Neighbourly Agreement’ means nothing to the Helicopter operators, as all they have to say is they are flying to Civil Aviation Safety Regulations. Most of the agreement that affects us might as well be deleted, as they fly over our homes at will, without any regard for the publicised flight paths.

Sir, I have spoken with the operators of helicopters at Caloundra Aerodrome, they have advised that pilots under instructors have to fly normal circuits outside the aerodrome. Students are unable to learn to fly within the airport boundary as the circuits would be to tight, and in their initial stages of learning they would not have time to respond to instructors.

Also, there are emergency procedures where students who have only a few hours flying time, that have to fly normal circuits to ensure they have time to respond to the emergency procedure they are practicing. The helipads that have been developed by council, do help when experienced pilots are operating at Caloundra aerodrome.

From what I can gather from the Caloundra operators they are flying at Caloundra as per the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations, and therefore other than keeping a communications line open to the operators, and ensuring that flying practices are as per the Regs, there is little I can do to change current practices.

The flight paths of these helicopters is nothing like the one on publicised, which is mainly within the airport boundary. I can understand the occasional pass outside these flight paths, but they are doing it all the time, with no regard for the fly neighbourly agreement.
It happened again today, I counted 25 passes over my home, which is well outside the airport boundary. They are making a joke of this supposed ‘agreement’ and seem to fly wherever they like. There is a large area of ‘bush’ south west of the airport, why can’t they do their circuits there.

Sir, I have investigated your noise complaint (see attached email), and it appears it is normal operations, and as you can see, they are very conscious of the impact they have on the community, so were actually flying 200′ higher than is required.

I apologise if you are being affected by noise, but as you have purchased near an airport, you will at times be subjected to aircraft noise. The management of Sunshine Coast Airport works very closely with the tenants of Caloundra Airport to ensure that everything possible is undertaken to manage the noise levels created from their activities, unfortunately they do have to fly to regulations, and this at times will mean they have to travel over the top of residents, as developments have been allowed so close to the aerodrome.

After discussion with the helicopter pilot’s it would seem this noise complaint may have been linked with our activities. The instructors were flying around the circuit between 1 -2 pm yesterday afternoon, however they were flying at 800ft which is 300ft above the CASA requirement (500ft). This has been a practice Chopperline have been doing as a courtesy for Bell Vista residents to reduce noise. Instructors have also pointed out that there was a Bell206 and a AS350 in the circuit from an unknown operator. This to could have been a contributor to the noise complaint.